


rage against the dying of the light

by ephemeral_wishes



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Attempted Necromancy, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Codependency, Depression, Flashbacks, I think this is dark but, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Incest, Masturbation, Mental Breakdown, Necrophilia, Not A Fix-It, Obsession, Other, Past Drug Use, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Civil War (Marvel), Sibling Incest, Suicide Attempt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Vomiting, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, i don't know if it's dark enough to tag as dark?, it's dark tho, unhealthy codependency, wanda maximoff has issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:53:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeral_wishes/pseuds/ephemeral_wishes
Summary: Wanda goes to the New York Public Library on a rainy Saturday afternoon to check out three books: Fun and Easy Hairstyles by Medusalith Amaquelin, Tales of Mount Wundagore by Erik Lensherr and most importantly, Practical Necromancy by Eric Williams.AKA the fic where Wanda Maximoff really, really, does not know how to let her brother go.





	rage against the dying of the light

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been writing this fic for about a year, not gonna lie. And you can't really tell because it SUCKS. But I also felt like I might as well put it out there because I just did work hard on it and it's long so might as well? 
> 
> Anyway, I understand that flaming me might make you feel better about yourself, but I respectfully ask that you don't. I don't have a beta, so all of the (many) mistakes are mine.
> 
> And just so you all know: not a Wanda bashing fic. I know, I know. Such disappointment. Fortunately for you, there are a million others on AO3.

Wanda goes to the New York Public Library on a rainy Saturday afternoon to check out three books: _Fun and Easy Hairstyles_ by Medusalith Amaquelin, _Tales of Mount Wundagore_ by Erik Lensherr and most importantly, _Practical Necromancy_ by Eric Williams. She finds it deep in the basement archives of the library, a deep blue and purple book about thirty chapters long with black flowers embossed on the cover, surrounding the curving letters that spell out the title and author name. Wanda makes sure that the book is tucked very carefully in her bag when she walks home. She doesn’t want to get it wet. The books thump against each other as she walks along the sidewalk, water sloshing around her sky blue rain boots with daisies printed on them. Wanda bends down a few times on the way to pick up two pennies and a discarded hairpin that was supposed to have a jeweled butterfly on it, but is missing part of one wing. She tucks those in her bag too.

 

 

Steve gives Wanda a slightly reprimanding look when she gets in the door. “You should have worn a coat.”

It is true that the thin black cardigan she has on had not done much to protect her from the downpour. Wanda points out that she had at least brought the rain boots.

“Sure,” Steve says, “Are you hungry?”

Wanda shakes her head and without saying anything else, dashes off to her room. She is probably dripping water everywhere, and for the sake of comfort, decides to take a bath before doing anything else. The water goes just below the curve of her breasts, leaving her shoulders slightly cold. She slides down until she is covered up to her neck and remembers all the times that she had gone under until she couldn’t breathe, hoping that she’d never come up again until Natasha told her that she wasn’t allowed to bathe alone anymore until they trusted her not to off herself. So technically, she’s not supposed to be doing this-even though she now has no reason to off herself. She has hope. Wanda Maximoff has _Practical Necromancy_ and her brother’s dead body, preserved in a case made by S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Can I have it?” She asked Nick Fury after the fight was over and she was done screaming and her soul was most definitely fully crushed.

“What?”

“Him.”

Fury had given her an odd look, then a sympathetic one and said yes, she could have him. Pietro Maximoff left nobody behind but his sister. So Wanda keeps her brother in a part of the compound nobody touches, a room connected to her own that is a little bigger than a closet. It’s probably meant for storage. The Avengers think she cremated her brother. They don’t know that they live with a dead man.

Well, Vision knows. He helped her hide the body in the first place. He said he didn’t understand, not really, because he did not have a brother, but that he was sorry and he could see why she’d want to keep him close.

Wanda gets out of the bath and dresses herself in mismatched socks and an oversized pink sweatshirt with the number 64 on the front in glittery, holographic lettering. Then she picks up the book and goes to the room next door. It is getting late, but Vision, as always, is not tired.

“Look,” Wanda shows him the book, “I went to the library today.”

“Very nice,” he says approvingly. Vision likes libraries. “Practical Necromancy.”

“It’s about raising the dead,” she explains, before realizing that he already knew that. “Vision, this is _it._ I know this is the book that’s going to help me, I just know it.” Wanda has tried to find ways to do this before, and after months of scouring, the solution is there. “It talks about the stones.”

“The Infinity Stones?”

She nods. “That’s what gave us our powers. That’s what made you alive! I know that this must be how I bring him back.” Since most people have no idea what the Infinity Stones are, they could easily pass this book off as silly. But the Avengers, they know better now.

Still, Vision looks unsure. “Wanda, I am unsure if any good will come of this. You know what happened when Ultron tried to play God-”

“I’m not Ultron. I just want my brother here, where he belongs.” The two of them belonged together, that much was sure. “If I can’t have him here, then I’ll go after him.”

“I cannot let you do that.”

But she has already tried and if she gets the right moment, she knows she can do it. Vision knows this too, which is why he doesn’t argue when she says, “It’s us together or nothing at all.”

 

\--------------------

 

_There is nothing like being suffocated like this. Nothing like breathing in only hot, chalky dust coming out of the rubble that was once your home.  Was. That’s what it is now. Their parents live only in the past tense. Wanda Maximoff will never say, “My mother is beautiful,” ever again. Was. Her mother **was** beautiful._

_Under the fake safety of a rickety bed that creaks with every shift of the bricks that now covers them, Wanda cries into her brother’s arms. She keeps saying, “Gone, gone, gone.” He shakes his head, eyes wide and small hands quivering. He holds her close, but he can barely move. One of his legs is broken, practically crushed under debris._

_Wanda stares fearfully at the shell that lies just feet away from them. It is the last thing she will see._

_“What if it just kills one of us?” She whispers. That would be worse than dying; living without her brother._

_“It won’t. We have to go at the same time. We’re twins.” Pietro is sure of this. Wanda is comforted by it._

_“It killed **them**.”_

_“I know.”_

_Maybe it won’t be so bad if the shell explodes and swallows them up in rubble and flames. They will get to be a family again._

 

_\---------------------_

 

Wanda knows that she has made the right choice checking out _Practical Necromancy_ as soon as she is done with reading the introduction. Eric Williams has a connection with her, she is sure of it. He has lost his brother too.

 _I’m proud of you, reader, for taking this brave step,_ he writes, _After many years of studying resurrection, I hope to share my findings with you in the hopes that you will be able to revive your loved ones. You deserve this. The world tells us that we humans should not play God, that death is out of our hands. But when God cruelly snatches our friends and family from us too soon, we have a right to fight back. Do not feel guilty about this. Own it. The gift of life can be in your hands._

_When my brother Simon passed away, I was devastated. Naively, I listened to those who told me that he was in a better place and that everything happens for a reason. Simon’s death served no purpose other than to cause me pain. Through years of study, I have come closer and closer to reviving him, and now wish to share my findings with the world so that you may do the same. While some of what you find in this book may seem outlandish, I urge you to look at it with an open mind-after all, you are not alone, and we are all on this journey together._

The first chapter talks a lot about spells and magic. Wanda has never heard of any of these, much less practiced them herself, but is willing to try anything. Vision seems a bit more skeptical.

“This man has presented no credentials,” he reminds her, “He may have no idea what he’s talking about. And besides, I’m sure other people have read this book, but I haven’t heard of any recent influx of people bringing their loved ones back to life.”

“They didn’t have this,” she reminds him back, holding up a hand surrounded by a soft red light emitting from her palm and fingertips clad with silver rings. Usually she hates her powers, wishes she had never been given them, but now she is grateful. They are the key to bringing Pietro back to her. “The book says that the spells will work by channeling them through a supernatural source. I’ll channel them through _me_.”

“That does not sound safe.” He is starting to look like he regrets aiding her in any of this.

“I don’t care.” Wanda is not a cold or constantly blunt person, but she knows that she had to hold her ground on this. “Vision, it’s us together or nothing at all, remember? I’ll die without him.”

“That is not true.”

But it _is_ true. Wanda can already feel her heart, her body, grow weaker with each passing day, like some unseen force is trying to drag her down to the underworld with her better half. She can imagine it, being pulled underground, dragged through layers of what the Earth hides beneath its surface until she is finally in her brother’s arms again. She feels him kiss her, hold her close, whisper to her as she cries in his arms. _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here now, sweetheart. Don’t you cry, I’m here._ Their bodies pressed up against each other, free from the world and everything it has to offer. Just him and her, the way it is supposed to be, billions of miles away from everything else.

“You do not have to help,” she says finally, “You really do not. But please do not tell anyone.” If Steve finds out, he’ll panic and then he’ll call Clint, who will panic even more and make her go somewhere for people who think that they can bring their dead brothers back to life.

Vision promises that he’ll help, just to please be careful with what she is doing. In return, Wanda promises that she will.

 

\---------------------------

_Her hands are going to freeze, even if they are covered in thin, dark orange mittens with holes in the fingers. The threads are starting to unravel so part of her palm is exposed. Wanda pushes the now delicate threads into a little ball, as if that’s going to fix it._

_“Here,” Pietro says, taking her hands in his own. His are freezing too, only he doesn’t even have anything covering them. He’s given those to her._

_Wanda crawls over and huddles up close to her brother. At eleven, almost twelve, she is still smaller than him and can hide underneath the tattered coat he had found lying on the streets near a trashcan. She likes to wrap herself in that coat and his warmth, feeling comforted by his hands stroking her hair, arms keeping her close. Pietro tells her he prefers it this way. It makes him feel safe, having her close._

_“Even if I’m heavy to carry?” She asks. More often than not, she wraps her legs around his torso and lets him carry her around like this._

_“You are not heavy,” he tells her, “You’re small.”_

_It’s true, she is small. Small and skinny. While Pietro may be skin and bones as much as she is, he is at least bigger, a little stronger physically._

_“Alright,” she says, “Even if I am annoying?”_

_“You’re not annoying...mostly,” he teases. Then, taking on a more serious expression he tells her again that he likes to have her close._

_Wanda burrows her head into his shoulder, because she likes it too._

_Her brother carries her down the broken streets of Novi Grad. They are going to the shelter set up for people like them who have lost their homes, people like them who are tired and starving, who haven’t seen a doctor in years. Later that day, a bomb will go off and destroy the shelter too._

 

_\---------------------------_

 

Wanda goes without sleep for almost two days because she is spending all her time practicing the spells from _Practical Necromancy,_ without much success. The first few times, nothing happens.  The next tries result in a broken window. But Wanda does not stop. She thinks of her brother, lying in a glass case preserving his face, his perfect face, just a door away. Her secret. She’s protecting her secret.

“Almost there,” she whispers to him at night. She presses her face up against the glass, hands curving over the edges of it. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I won’t live without you, I promise.”

He remains frozen, suspended in time. His body does not decay, but to Wanda, it seems that he has already started to fade. He looks cold to her, and it’s wrong, because Pietro has always kept her warm.

Wanda kisses the top of the case with a spell on her lips that doesn’t work just as Natasha knocks on the door and calls her to come eat.

“I’m busy,” she calls back.

“You haven’t had anything all day.”

“An M&M.”

“What?”

“I ate an M&M at eight o’clock this morning.”

“Get out here and eat, Wanda. I’m not asking.”

She doesn’t want to leave her brother, but sighs and promises him that she’ll be fast. She doesn’t speak much at dinner, even when Steve asks her what she did that day.

“I read,” she says softly.

“What did you read?”

“Books.” She won’t say what kind.

Steve looks at Sam as if for assistance. The other man stares back at him with a raised eyebrow and an expression that clearly asks, _“What the hell do you want me to do?”_

It’s Rhodey who breaks the silence. “I didn’t know you could read English, Wanda. That’s great.”

“My brother learns first. Then, I do. From him,” she explains, “He is the smartest person I know. Some people don’t think that, but he is.”

Steve looks slightly uncomfortable. “That’s nice.”

“He’s kind too. You probably didn’t get the chance to see. But he is the kindest.”

“That’s-”

“He said for our birthday, he would get me whatever I wanted. I wanted a kitten, so he said he would find me one that I would love forever. He can’t do that anymore, because he was shot twenty three times and now he’s fucking dead.”

Natasha doesn’t look like she’ll bother her about eating dinner with the team after that and doesn’t say anything when Wanda only eats half a piece of bread before going back to her room. She talks to her dead brother for a little while, goes to bed, cries in her sleep, wakes up screaming, and goes to sleep next to Steve in his bed for the rest of the night. She’d stay with Vision, but he isn’t always a very comforting presence when you’re plagued by dreams of being crushed, once with the death of your parents, then with losing your other half.

 

 

_“I want a kitten.”_

_“What kind?”_

_“The kind I can love forever and ever.”_

_“They are hard to take care of.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“I’ll get you one. One you can love forever.”_

_“Will the kitten love me back?”_

_“Don’t be stupid, Wanda. What idiot wouldn’t love you?”_

Wanda makes big things move with her mind now, she reaches deep inside and pulls out red magic. She is afraid of her hands and what they can do, but she is also grateful. Her hands are what will bring her brother back to her, they are what will touch his face and memorize how he feels all over again.

But even after all that, the spells don’t work. She tries over and over again but her brother doesn’t even twitch. The next two weeks are nothing but frustration, screaming, and a lot of throwing things at walls until Steve starts talking about having her see a therapist. She is quieter after that.

“It’s not fair!” Wanda yells at Vision one day. She is louder because they are the only ones in the compound. “Nothing’s happening!”

“Wanda, I told you this might not work.”

“It’s supposed to work! He’s supposed to come back!”

“These things take time.”

 _“I don’t care!”_ She throws something at the wall that shatters and she’s not sure what it is. “ _I need him now!”_

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t! You never knew anyone as good and beautiful as him and you never ever will! He didn’t deserve to get shot!” Oh God, no he didn’t. Shot twenty three times to save a man who had hated him up until that point. What an awful way to go. Alone. She hadn’t even been there to hold him at the end. He probably felt like she’d let him down completely.

“He was _scared_ ,” she chokes out, sinking to the floor. “I felt it. I know he was.”

“He was brave.”

“He didn’t want to die.”

“I know. That’s what made him brave.”

Wanda screams, “Fuck bravery! I don’t want him to be brave! I want him to be _alive_!” Something else in the room shatters and it’s not because she threw anything. She jumps back in surprise, not sure of what to do. That hasn’t happened much before and it still frightens her.

“I’m sorry,” Vision tells her, “I truly am.”

But he doesn’t say what she needs to hear. He doesn’t even leave it unspoken. The words he leaves unspoken are, “ _He is never coming back.”_

Wanda buries her face in her hands and runs into the closet, slamming the door behind her. She kneels down next to the coffin, runs her fingers over it. She can see her brother’s face ever so faintly through the glass and she kisses him as best she can. She whispers that she loves him so much. She imagines that he hugs her back and says that he loves her too and that he won’t ever let go of her, that he won’t ever let them break apart.

It’s late when Wanda wakes up and drags herself out of the closet. She slams the door as hard as she can and screams.

 

No Infinity Gems. No spells that worked. Nothing.

“Oh, Pietro. Oh, my everything.”

_My everything. Oh my God oh My GOD._

Steve knocks on her door and asks very loudly what the hell she is doing. Hands shaking-her whole body shaking, really-Wanda thinks that she will never breathe again.

“I’m watching a movie,” she says.

“What movie?”

“ _Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”_ It’s one of the only American movies she’s seen.

Sam leaves her alone to fake watch horror movies after that and Wanda keeps throwing things at her walls and crying. After something smashes, Steve comes and yells at her.

“Leave me alone!” Wanda yells back.

“Stop throwing things! What are you doing!”

And Wanda cries.

Steve, unsure of what to do, finally leaves.

 

_They shout for justice even thought it seems like nobody listens. Wanda and Pietro stand shoulder to shoulder in front of flashing lights with their hands on a sign that reads “Justice for Sokovia.”_

_When they go home after the protests have been broken up and people walk away bloody and bruised, the hold each other’s hands and don’t let go. When they lie down on a makeshift bed with tattered blankets that don’t protect them from the cold, her brother whispers that one day, they’ll have everything in the world. He’ll make sure of it_

_“We’ll have justice, I promise.”_

_Wanda would close her eyes and sleepily say that she believed him. And she really did. She believed everything Pietro said.  They shouted for justice in the day, and they whispered about it in the night._

_So when a man comes to them and offers their country freedom, they say yes._

Steve is sitting at the table with Natasha, Sam, Vision and Rhodey in the morning. He looks like he’s about to tell her that someone died.

“Who died?” Wanda thinks that she can’t take anymore death, not ever again.

“Nobody. We want you to go to therapy.”

Wanda isn’t listening to them, not when Rhodey talks about how good it will be for her and how it helps so many people through their problems, or when Natasha tells her that she can’t keep living like this. She can’t keep living in her room, watching _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ and eating one M &M a day.

“I don’t want to go to therapy. I don’t need a therapist,” she looks at Vision, “Tell them.”

Vision looks disturbed-as disturbed as an android can look-and for a moment, Wanda thinks that he’s about to tell all of them what’s been going on. She holds her breath, then lets it out when Vision says that maybe it’s best to just let Wanda heal on her own.

“Not helping,” Steve sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Jesus, can you just give it a chance, please? I’m really worried about you and-“

“You shouldn’t be worried about me, Steve. I’m okay.” She’s not a good liar.

“You don’t eat, you cry and scream at night, you started trashing your room yesterday, and you hardly ever go outside. Wanda. Please. You need help.”

She doesn’t say anything. Vision still looks upset and she knows that he wants so badly to tell them. But Vision knows that if he says a word, Wanda isn’t just going to be going to weekly therapy.

“I can get better,” she whispers, “I’ll try harder, I’ll go…outside. And I’ll eat dinner with you.”

“That’s not what this is about. You’ve seen and experienced some horrible things. We know that, and we want to help you deal with it. It’s really normal for people to have PTSD after going through traumatic events.” Steve sounds like a booklet in a doctor’s office covered with stock photos

“You don’t go to therapy,” Wanda points out to him, and she can see Steve resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “None of you do.”

Sam clears his throat and Rhodey sighs heavily. Natasha on the other hand, just taps her fingers on the table, the only sound in an otherwise silent room.

There’s no arguing with that.

 

Vision meets Wanda in her room later on, finding her poring through Practical Necromancy again. The dark circles under her eyes can no longer be covered with makeup and her hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in days. When Wanda looks up at him, there’s a terrified look in her eyes that Vision only sees when she wakes up from a nightmare.

“I need to do this as fast as I can. They’re getting too worried,” she tells him, “What if one of them decides to come in here and they find him?” Everything would be ruined beyond repair.

“I think I found a way that I might be able to use the mind stone and my magic,” Wanda continues, sounding a little more excited-almost too excited, “I’ve been practicing-“

“Wanda. Stop.” He sounds tired.

She freezes. “What?”  
“You have to stop. This,” he waves his hand. “There is no bringing your brother back. You can’t. I know you miss him, but this obsession…it’s extremely unhealthy. And I never should have tried to encourage it. I’m sorry.”

 Wanda stares at him, not in anger, but with a look of complete and utter heartbreak on her face. “But-the book says the Infinity Stones-“

“The book says a lot of things, Wanda! Maybe this Eric Williams man somehow found out about what the Infinity Stones can do. But is any of it working? Does your brother live again?”

“He will! I need more time!”

“Your time is _up!”_ he says sharply, before softening. “I’m begging you to stop.”

“I’m not going to.” Her voice is as strong as her resolve.

“Then I’m going to tell Steve.”

And Wanda’s heart drops.

 

_It’s too late before they realize what they’ve gotten themselves into._

_The people they work for aren’t the caring fighters for freedom they had promised themselves to be._

_They are monsters. And now, so is she._

_Wanda feels her DNA shift and change, contort into something different. She screams into darkness, only barely holding on because she can hear her brother’s cries as he calls her name back. They are separated, but just for now._

_How long has it been? Wanda loses all sense of time after a bit. All she knows now is pain. She will never know anything else, she is sure of it._

_Finally, it stops. The horrors of it are not over, because when Wanda looks in the mirror, she sees glowing eyes and monstrous hands covered with red smoke that destroy and kill._

_Wanda thinks to herself that she is now a hideous monster. But at least the pain has stopped._

_“I want my brother,” she says immediately, before anything else. “Let me see him **now**.” _

_To her surprise, Von Strucker actually seems happy to reunite the twins. Wanda doesn’t even wait for the guards to open the door to where Pietro is. She puts her hands on the door, screams his name and almost starts bawling when he calls hers back again._

_It’s a blur, a literal blur, because Pietro can move fast now-not a monster, thank God. Wanda doesn’t see anything but him. She is buried in his arms._

_“I love you,” her brother chokes out, “I love you so much.”_

_He kisses her and she kisses him back and everything is okay. They don’t notice the horrified looks on the faces of the guards standing behind them. Wanda doesn’t care about anything else in the world but her brother’s lips on hers._

After Vision’s threat to tell Steve, Wanda promises him that she’ll stop. She certainly doesn’t stop going to cry over her brother’s dead body every day for as long as she can, but she’s no longer practicing magic all the time. She leaves _Practical Necromancy_ alone. It has to be that way, she tells herself, for a little while. Once things calm down, she can start bringing Pietro back again.

It is past midnight when Wanda wakes up sobbing her heart out again. When Natasha knocks on her door, she scrambles out of bed and flings it open before she can come in herself.

“Come sleep with me,” Natasha tells her. Her eyes are rimmed red, and Wanda thinks that the invitation isn’t just meant to help her. She doesn’t turn it down, though. She hates sleeping alone, and Natasha’s bed is comfortable.

“Don’t cuddle me,” Natasha tells her once they’re lying down, “That’d be so weird. I’m not your cuddle buddy.”

“Okay.” Steve lets her hang onto him, but that’s just Steve. He lets all of them hang onto him at night.

Natasha asks her if she’s been doing okay, and Wanda lies and says yes before changing the subject and asking her what book she’s reading.

“It’s this thing by Stephen King. About a fan who finds this famous author and tortures him.”

Wanda’s eyes widen. “Is that realistic?”

Natasha makes a face. “Well, I know people do plenty of fucked up shit-“

“Not the torture part. But could you just find an author like that?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess today you can find lots of people. Why, you a fan of someone?”

“Kind of.” She doesn’t elaborate and Natasha doesn’t ask her to, so they both lay there in silence until they fall asleep.

 

“Please, Vision. _Please.”_

Wanda has been begging him for what feels like forever. She knows it’s unrealistic to expect a yes, but that doesn’t keep her from trying.

“I told you I was done with this,” Vision tells her sharply, “I made it very clear that I do not approve of-“

“I know you don’t. And if this doesn’t work, I promise I will stop. I _promise.”_ She knows how desperate and broken she sounds. She’s breathing out her last hope, the last chance she’s ever going to have.

Vision sighs and stares straight ahead. He was playing chess against himself again. He says it helps him think, and Wanda hopes that he’s thinking of the future. A future where her brother is alive and safe. She prays under her breath that he will help her grant it.

Vision doesn’t promise anything.

“I’ll think about it,” he says, tipping over the white rook almost absentmindedly. “Go to sleep, Wanda. I’ll…I’ll tell you in the morning.”

She doesn’t even argue with him or demand a concrete answer at that very moment, since _I’ll think about it_ is better than anything she ever could have hoped for. Wanda resists the urge to hug him and walks backwards slowly, then turns around and runs to her room, nearly knocking herself over when bumping into Steve in the hallway.

“Careful, kid.”

“I’m trying!” Wanda smiles brightly at him.

Steve seems taken aback. She hasn’t’ sounded so upbeat and happy…well, ever. Since the two have known each other anyway. Wanda thinks that’s another wonderful thing about Pietro coming back. Steve will get to know what she used to be like. And even better, he’ll get to really know Pietro, the absolute greatest person who ever lived.

Wanda shuts the door to her room again and runs to the closet for her brother, throwing herself over the case and pressing her nose against it. Pietro is so close to her, so close.

“It’s almost time,” Wanda tells him, “Almost time for you to come back to me.”

 

_He doesn’t stop touching her. It feels like they’re one person._

_“Oh fuck. More, more, more. Fuck me.”_

_They lose track of which one of them is talking and moaning. Wanda thinks she cries out as he pins her back and her body shakes._

 

The time on her phone says that it’s almost six in the morning. The closet is still dark.

Wanda feels hungry but has no desire to move too much, so she just lies on the floor next to her brother, contemplating whether or not it’s worth it to sneak into the kitchen to get something.

Sleeping next to Pietro feels lonely now. She wants so badly to feel him with her. To feel him on her, _inside her._

Fuck, she wants him inside her. The thought overtakes the feeling of hunger in her stomach and replaces it with something that makes her breath catch in her throat. She can very barely hear her brother whisper that he’s going to bend her over and fuck her until she can’t walk straight. He’s telling her that she’s such a filthy girl for begging on her knees for him to fuck her.

He put his fingers in her and Wanda falls apart. 

“Fuck.” It’s under her breath. She has her dress pulled up to her chest and her hand rubbing on her cunt. Not much is happening-it’s so, so different, and it’s not nearly as good because they’re split apart. Wanda moves so she’s lying on her stomach and presses her cheek against the ground, moving her hips rapidly. If she closes her eyes, she can feel him. Hear him again. Her heart is pounding and for a moment it feels like she might be sick.

_“Cum for me.”_

Wanda cries out her brother’s name, then claps her other hand over her mouth. It’s quiet, other than the sound of her shaky, ragged breath.

Her whole body feels weak. She forces herself to stand and stammers out of the closet, shutting it hard behind her. His voice is gone, just like that.

Wanda feels it within reach. Maybe if she tries again, she can hear him once more. She gets on the bed and pulls her dress up to her chest.

 

 

She doesn’t go out to see everyone else at breakfast. Wanda tries it over and over, even it starts to hurt a little, and then when she can barely feel it anymore. It keeps his voice in her head. He’s told her a million times now what he wants to do to her and then she closes her eyes and he does it. He does it until she can’t breathe.

Wanda is lost in her mind. She doesn’t notice it when Vision phases through the wall. He freezes in mild horror, staring at her.

“Vision!” She scrambles to sit upwards and grabs a blanket to hold over herself. “Oh my God, what are you doing?”

“I-just wanted to tell you-“ he manages, “God, Wanda, what were you doing?”

“You know what I was doing!” She doesn’t’ feel angry or even embarrassed, really. Now that she remembers what Vision is there to tell her, she feels apprehensive above all else. “Wait. Are you going to…?”

He sighs. “Yes. I found him.”

“And?”

“And I’ll give you the address but I will not help you beyond that.” He reaches into his pocket and tosses a crumpled piece of paper onto the bed. “There. Now go find him.”

Her eyes well up with tears. “I owe you so much, Vision.”  
“Yes, you do. Don’t forget about that,” he pauses before he leaves the room. “Be careful, Wanda. This man could be dangerous.”

“I’m dangerous,” she tells him, closing her eyes and drawing in a sharp breath. Through her veins, she can feel red magic moving. “My body never lets me forget it.”  


Eric Williams lives in Brooklyn. Wanda takes a cab.

She brings his book with her and holds it securely to her chest. It presses the silver star she wears around her neck into her skin.

The others seemed thrilled that she was going outside at all, so they didn’t press too much about where she was going.

There is no way she can ever repay Vision for this, but she tells herself that she’ll spend every waking moment trying to.

The cab driver tries to make conversation with her. “You look pretty happy. Big day?”  
“Yes,” Wanda smiles brightly and tries to put on a fake American accent. “It really is. Just down here, please.”

She pulls up to the curb. “Have a nice day, miss.”

Wanda digs into her purse and hands her two twenties before getting out and slamming the car door shut. She feels a little like she might be sick again, but this time, she doesn’t care at all. Nearly tripping over her feet, she scrambles towards the front door and bangs on it loudly before pressing the doorbell a few times. The sound of shuffling from inside comes, and then the door swings open. Wanda holds her breath.

The man standing in front of her is dark haired and gaunt. He looks as if he’s never slept in his life, and he’s wearing nothing but a blue and purple robe that in about the same shape he’s in. He presses his thin lips together and then asks, “Can I help you?”

“Are you Eric Williams?”

“The one and only,” he leans against the doorway. “Or not. There’s probably a million more Eric Williams in the world. You sure I’m who you’re looking for?”

“As long as you wrote this book,” she holds it out to him. “I got it and-“

“Oh, Jesus.” He grimaces. “Not again.”

She looks confused. “What?”

“Lady, you’re not the first person who tracked me down trying to get this shit to work. I never should have published that damn book.” He closes the door an inch. “Whatever you’re looking for-“

“I need you to help me!” Wanda says desperately, feeling a knot in her throat start to form. “I know that maybe it didn’t work for some people but I have powers. And an Infinity Stone! I can bring him back.”

“Who? Boyfriend? Brother?”

 _Both._ She stays silent.

“That book is a load of shit,” Eric tells her sharply, “People will believe in any ray of hope when they’re grieving, even when it’s idiotic. Take my advice and move on with your life. I wasn’t able to bring my brother back, and you can’t bring back whoever you want either. Powers or not.”

 “That’s not true.”

“I know it’s true!” He suddenly grabbed the book out of her hands. “I don’t understand the Infinity Stones! I don’t understand how to bring someone back from the dead! I convinced myself I did enough to write a book and a bunch of people like _you_ …” he shoved it back to her chest, “You were stupid enough to buy it.”

“No,” she shakes her head frantically, “That’s not true. You’re-“

Eric Williams takes a step back and looks her over for a moment, eyebrows furrowing. “You know, I thought you looked familiar. You’re that girl from TV. In Sokovia, with the Avengers. War orphan.”

Wanda stays silent. Eric takes another step back and only says one more thing before he shuts the door.

“For someone who grew up seeing the worst of humanity, you’re pretty damn naïve, Wanda Maximoff.”

 

_Oh no. Oh, he’s gone._

_He died._

_Wanda is screaming._

_Her heart is gone. Everything is gone. Her soul, her life, everything has been torn violently from her chest, leaving her bloodied and scarred._

_His name is silent on her lips. She can’t say it. She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe again._

 

Wanda doesn’t’ know where she’s going. She walks a few blocks in a daze and remembers her brother promising to get her a kitten. She rubs her thin scarf against her cheek and imagines that it’s fur. She remembers all her brother sacrificed and how it left him dead. And then she thinks she’s going to be sick. And she is.

“Sorry,” she gasps at the woman who is staring at her with an appalled look on her face as she backs away from where she vomited. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh my God. I’m so sorry!”

She’s beyond reason now. For awhile after Pietro died, all that existed was numbness. Eating M&Ms, masturbating to a dead body, drinking bottle after bottle and putting needles in her arms, hoping that it would just make it stop. But it’s gone. Hope was just ripped out of her body along with her heart and soul and breath and she’s a bleeding shell, an ugly excuse for a human being.

Not even a human being. Not anymore.

“I’m a sick fucking bitch,” she cries out loudly, drawing more attention than she needs to. “ _Fuck_! No! Fuck!”

Someone touches her arm and asks if she’s okay. Wanda doesn’t turn to see who it is. They know damn well that nothing is okay. She takes off running, not caring that she looks like a mess-she might as well let herself look the way she feels.

And it doesn’t matter anyway. She will look beautiful in heaven for her brother. He’ll be so happy.

Wanda just then realizes that she isn’t really breathing. It comes in short pants. Her chest is tight, her throat is closing up. She opens her mouth wide and tries to gulp in air, but…

Does she need to?

She reaches up around her tightening throat and lets her hands glow red. She squeezes.

Where is she? It’s dark out. How long has she been walking?

And then it’s gone.

 

_Someone pulls them out of the rubble a million years later, even if they say that it was just three days._

_Pietro is crying as they are pulled through the damage, but Wanda is quiet. She hears someone say, “I think that she’s in shock.”_

_It seems pretty quiet, actually, except for her brother’s cries, which Wanda does her best to soothe. When she is set down, she holds him close in front of the rubble of their building. She stays quiet. Strong for her brother._

_Wanda is not in shock. She knows exactly what just happened._

_“Such brave children,” someone says gently, proudly. “You’re doing so well.”_

_And Wanda is proud that she’s doing so well, proud that she is strong for her brother. And oh, if she hadn’t taken those few steps closer to the rubble she would have stayed like that. But she sees a broken remnant of the face that used to sing to them at night, now burned and half torn off. Barely recognizable, but she knows. She knows the red headband that her mother wears._

_Wanda doesn’t realize that she is screaming until they drag her away._

_“That’s my Mama!” she shrieks, “That’s my Mama!”_

_“Wanda, Wanda-Pietro, **please.”** Someone begs, “Stay calm and-“_

_Her voice tears through the rubble. “That’s my Mama! They killed my Mama! Make her come back!”_

She knows she’s in a hospital because of how bright and white things are when she opens her eyes. And there’s a heart monitor next to her bed. Wanda sits up straight and feels a familiar hand on her shoulder.

“Vis,” she stammers out, turning to look at him. Her words are slurred. “What happened? What-“

“You had a panic attack,” he said, “A somewhat severe one. And evidently, you tried to commit suicide by choking yourself with your powers. It shouldn’t really work. The human body…” he trails off. “Never mind all that. What were you thinking, Wanda? What happened? Why didn’t you call?”

“Where am I?”

“The facility, in a hospital room. Dr. Cho thinks you will be just fine, but she is placing you on suicide watch. I can’t say I blame her.”

Wanda ignores that. “I-Vision, Eric…all of what he wrote with the Infinity Stones and how you need special powers to make it work-it wasn’t true. It wasn’t,” she starts to cry in earnest, “He told me. It’s just some stupid book.”

Vision looks as sad as an android can possibly be. “Oh, Wanda. I’m so, so sorry. I know you put so much faith into this. I-“

“I know,” she whispers through her tears. “You knew.”

“I never think it’s good to put all your hopes and dreams into one place. You’ve worked for so long on this. I know that it hurts to think that it didn’t work out.”

She sits up a little straighter. “I should have taken my head straight off.”

“Maybe there’s a part of you that wants to survive.”

“I don’t want anything anymore. I feel dead. I think I _am_ dead, Vision. I’m a ghost.”

“You seem quite alive to me.”

Wanda stares into space. “I think you might be wrong. But I guess this can’t be heaven, since he isn’t here.”

An uncomfortable silence falls between the two of them and Wanda feels her heartbeat start to quicken. Something is wrong.

“Calm down,” Vision tells her warily, “Please understand that I had no choice-“

“No,” she shakes her head, swallowing hard. “No.”

“Wanda, I had to tell them.”

She doesn’t even take the time to scream. She’s out of bed in an instant, and it’s so fast that it feels like her world is spinning for more reasons other than the fact that they are going to take her brother away from her. They’re taking him away. They’re going to bury him.

Wanda runs out of the room and almost immediately knocks herself backward by colliding with Steve, who looks absolutely petrified. 

“You can’t!” Wanda screams as loud as she can so it gets the point across. “ _You can’t bury him_!”

“Wanda…Jesus Christ,” Steve looks helplessly over at Natasha, who is standing across from them with a stoic look on her face. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Who the fuck does that?”

She falls to her knees, bawling. “Steve, don’t bury him. Please, please…”  
“You do _not_ have a say in what happens to his body anymore, Wanda,” Rhodey says to her, “I don’t think you understand how fucked up this is. You could probably be charged with some sort of crime.”

“I don’t care!” she screams, “I don’t care! I don’t care if I’m in prison or if I’m dead, just don’t bury him! Don’t put him under! Not again! He can’t go under again!”

A doctor is pulling her back and Wanda thinks that she could almost certainly take him out. But she doesn’t want to, so she lets them sink the needle into her neck and fall asleep.

 

Steve tells Wanda that she can’t go on any missions.

They took her brother’s body, but they didn’t bury him. He was cremated. Wanda wasn’t allowed to be there either.

She’s on suicide watch, so she doesn’t get much time alone. Steve sits with her a lot.

 

Wanda doesn’t sleep.

 

When Clint convinces her to go outside, he keeps a steady hold on her arm. Wanda feels like her legs are weaker than they should be, and stumbles a little bit.

“I like it when you do that,” she tells Clint.

“Huh?”

“My arm. Pietro held my arm. And my hand. He always touched me.”

“I know, honey.” Clint walks a little longer with her. It’s a nice day out, but Wanda barely notices until a pretty little bird flies past and makes her smile for a split second. She loves birds. All animals, really.

Clint speaks. “Can I ask you something? I don’t want you to be offended by it. I just…I always wondered if you two were-“ he cleared his throat, “You know. Planting flowers in the attic.”

“Hm?”

“Game of Thrones type situation?”

Wanda stares at him confusedly until he gives in and point blank asks, “Did you fuck your brother, Wanda?”

She keeps staring, but with a different expression. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Oh,” he breathes a kind of sigh of relief. “Of course it is. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ask-“

“ _He_ fucked _me_.”

 

Wanda feels the urge to have sex or to at least get off somehow on her own, but she doesn’t do anything about it. Pietro is too distant now. Vision understands.

“Maybe you’ll find someone else someday,” he says.

“I want Pietro.”

“I wish he was here too, trust me. It’s not a great deal of fun to be around someone in a constant state of mourning for someone they never could have been with.”

“I’d keep it a secret,” Wanda says, “We kept it a secret for a long time.”

Vision gives her a look. “I think you got rather good at keeping secrets. Maybe therapy will start to help.”

She shrugs. Wanda doesn’t know much what to think about her therapist. The woman tries to understand being buried, but she doesn’t get it, not really.

“She said I should try writing letters to Pietro,” she says, “That maybe it will help get past all of it.”

“I think that sounds like a fine idea,” Vision smiles at her, “What will you write about, Wanda Maximoff?”

She smiles back. Just a little.

 

_Hi Pietro. I love you. I miss you. I want you to come back. We don’t have our kitten. You are so alone. Aren’t you afraid?_

_I think I’m buried now._

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you didn't totally hate this. If you didn't, leave me a review before you go?


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